Crispy Hina-Arare Cheese Truffles

March 3rd is Hinamatsuri (Japanese Doll Festival or Girls' Day). On this day, we set up hina dolls (hina-ningyo) that are believed to protect girls from bad luck. Those dolls consist of the Emperor (odairisama), Empress (ohinasama), three court ladies (sanninkanjyo), and five musicians (goninbayashi) in traditional court dress of the Heian period.

On Hinamatsuri, we eat colorful rice puffs called hina-arare. They commonly consists of three colors: pink, white, and green: pink represents life, white represents earth, and green represents trees. Those who eat them are believed to drive out their misfortune and disease.

Today, I will show you a crispy truffles recipe using leftover hina-arare ;)

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Crispy Hina-Arare Cheese Truffles

Difficulty: Easy
Time: 10min + 60min refrigeration time
Number of servings: 8

Ingredients:
50g (1.8oz.) cream cheese *softened to room temperature
50g (1.8oz.) white chocolate *melted over a pot of boiling water
30g (1.0oz.) hina-arare (for filling) *use the small grains
moderate amount hina-arare (for topping) *use the small grains

Directions:
1. In a bowl, mix softened cream cheese and melted white chocolate, add hina-arare (for filling), and gently mix it in.



2. Divide the mixture into 8, roll into balls using hands, roll truffles in hina-arare (for topping), and refrigerate for 30 minutes until they set.



My original recipe in Japanese is here.
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Verrrrry easy, and not that sweet, so try it out!

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Blue Screen of Death

Last night, the Blue Screen of Death (the image from Wikipedia) came out unexpectedly on our 6-year-old FMV-DESKPOWER. (This was the latest PC with a built-in TV back then.)
It really frightened me a lot and the very first question I came up was:

When did I last back up my data?!

I couldn't get a real night's sleep... however, this morning, it came back on without an error screen. Whew...

Of course, I baked up all the important files before I go to work!!! How long you think the life of HDD? My former HDD lived for about 6 years... so I was kind of afraid to see the BsoD.

What a day :'-(

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My Accomplishments

Hi! Time to list my accomplishments again!

On 2/5, I attended the award ceremony of 青の洞窟 (Ao no Doukutsu) idea recipe contest. I happened to appear on the news article, too. (I'm wearing the blue cardigan.) The result page was released on 2/25! Again, I found myself on the image. Blue color stands! hehe

On 2/13, surprisingly, my "Yummy Salty Tofu" ranked the 1st on Lettuce Club's website. Salt, sesame oil, and garlic really work up the appetite! Yummy yummy!

From left to right image, on 2/14, 10th person photo reported my "Lucky Bean Rice" at Cookpad. I cooked rice using the lucky beans which was leftover from the bean scattering on Setsubun (2/3). On 2/18, 10th person photo reported my "Melting Heart Vegetable Curry and Rice" and "Kimpira Stir-Fried Mizuna and Chikuwa". Thanks!!!

On 2/22, I won the grand prix at COBON recipe contest. COBON is a wild yeast drink product. It is honey-sweet syrup, so you can use it instead of sugar. Wild yeast is used to produce fermented foods such as miso, soy sauce, sake, etc... Lately, Japanese lack wild yeast due to the dietary habits imported from Western countries, therefore COBON was made and consumed over 60 years (since 1950) to help ferment foods you consume, not to decompose in your stomach! Anyways, I added COBON to my everyday soy banana smoothie with a hint of ginger ;)

I think I expect nothing for April, since I cannot enter any contest in March due to the removal stuff. Hopefully in May!?!?

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